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Trade has been a large component of the weekend news blather due to the G-7 Comedy Revue hosted by Canada with President Trump leading the charge against America’s allies. After being lambasted by the leaders of the G-7 countries for increasing tariffs against them, Trump dropped a couple of bombs. The first was the suggestion that maybe Russia should rejoin the group, causing spasms in anti-Trump Muellerites (“I knew it! Got ‘em!”). And the second was that maybe the G-7 shouldn’t have any tariffs or subsidies between them at all. With that, Trump drops the mic, says peace out losers, I’m going to Singapore to bring global peace…later.

That

Is

Hilarious!

Somehow, Trump manages to turn it around, after being criticized as a protectionist; he leaves the G-7 meeting dropping the most free trade friendly proposal ever, leaving it to the establishment class to explain why Trump’s protectionism is bad, but that Trump’s free trade ideas are also bad because…TRUMP!

Although the Singapore summit may drown out a lot of the usual media backlash to Trump’s G-7 smack down, it’s hard to not be in awe of how Trump turned the criticism of him on trade right back on the other members of the G-7, demanding they liberalize their economies. Something of course, they have no intention of doing, thereby illustrating Trump’s point that free trade isn’t free trade if it only runs one way.

And in a related trade note, that standard bearer of the conventional wisdom, The Atlantic, ran a piece Friday called, Normalizing Trade Relations with China Was a Mistake. Admittedly, it was written by Reihan Salam, The Atlantic’s one of two token conservatives remaining (after giving Kevin Williamson the boot), but I thought it was interesting that Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffery Goldberg retweeted the article, calling it “bracing.” Goldberg is as conventional wisdom as conventional wisdom gets, and if he’s willing to take another look at a position that he’s slavishly supported for years, that may signal the beginning of the establishment looking at trade Trump’s way, rather than K Street’s way.

There are some things that just are not at all true, but are still part of the conventional wisdom, and are repeated with frequency in magazine articles and talking head shows. Lies often have a useful function and the longevity of the Prop 187 myth is due primarily to just how useful it is, to both sections of the left and right.

And so this story is trotted out once again, in Peter Beinart’s piece in The Atlantic, The Republican Party’s White Strategy. This time, the purpose is to attempt to discredit Trump’s anti-illegal immigration strategy by arguing that it’s been tried before, to utter failure, and Trump is offering a redo of the same failed strategy that will lead to the same result as it allegedly led to in California, unending Democratic rule as far as the eye can see.

Well there certainly is unending Democratic rule for as far as the eye can see in California. The gist of Prop 187 myth is as follows: The 1994 proposition forbade illegal aliens from accessing non emergency medical care, public education, and other California services. Republican Governor Pete Wilson latched on the proposition to win re-election, but by doing so, he destroyed the Republican Party in California by forever alienating Hispanic voters because of hate, bigotry, or whatever. Except for celebrity candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republicans have been shut out from power ever since.

That general thesis has been more or less debunked on the right. Anne Coulter broke down the issue here, arguing that supporting Prop 187 won Pete Wilson a 20 point victory in the election. The actual vote totals on the Prop 187 referendum break down this way:

Support for Prop. 187 was strongest among white non Hispanic voters (+28 points), and especially white males (+38 points). Latinos, on the other hand, voted No by a 73% to 27% margin. Blacks and Asians divided about evenly, with 52% voting in favor and 48% opposed.

So in terms of an ethnic breakdown, Prop 187 was popular and won among all ethnic groups except for Hispanics. Even then, as Coulter points out, Proposition 187 was still more popular among Hispanics than President Bush was in running for re-election just 2 years earlier (14% in California).

So Prop 187 passed and the voters never had contact with it again. Naturally this proposition went to the courts immediately and was finally struck down in the California courts in 1997. So how did a wildly popular voter’s referendum that helped a flailing Republican gubernatorial candidate achieve a massive re-electoral victory doom the Republican Party in California?

Beats me. But that’s the myth.

But the media and conventional wisdom have stuck with that, but actually there is a simpler answer and since it comes from the left in theory it should resonate at least with those more left leaning. Reliable Lefty writer Kevin Drum of Mother Jones takes another look at the proposition 187 myth and finds it lacking. Welding the mighty tool of Occam’s razor, a tool that’s useful only as long as you are not trying to confabulate a Rube Goldberg method to get a preferred answer, Drum makes a simple observation:

The greater the share of the non white vote; the greater the share of the Democratic vote. It’s the demographics…again. Prop 187 wasn’t even a bump on the road to Republican decline; that marched in lockstep with the share of the nonwhite electorate. This is now and will be soon replicating itself across the United States. Of course as I’ve noted, there could be stop sticks along the way, but the general trend, in our tribalistic era, is that the Republican electorate shrinks as the white population shrinks, and it’s shrinking everywhere.

So even though the Prop 187 myth isn’t true doesn’t mean it’s not pointed out real problems. But the purpose of the myth is to force Republicans into open borders/amnesty types of positions; in other words, to accelerate the shrinking of their own electorate. It’s clearly obvious why the Democrats would support that, but why do so many Republicans fall for that too?

Jeb Bush was in Iowa last week sticking his toe in the water to see if he really could win the general by losing the primary. I have to give him credit; he’s willing to stick to unpopular positions, even if they are politically toxic. He reiterated his support for Common Core, which is unpopular with some conservative activists, and opposed renewal fuel standards, which although they are not popular with Republicans in general, are popular in Iowa. So he’s not afraid to run against the grain. But I just can’t, in this or any other parallel universe, imagine Jeb Bush winning the Republican nomination.

David Frum wrote a piece in The Atlantic last month describing Bush as a Republican version of Obama in that they have created artificial identities to hide behind. In Bush’s case, he is from a northeastern WASP family via Texas and now regards himself as an adopted Hispanic, speaking Spanish in the home, converting to Roman Catholicism, and moving to the Capital of Latin America, Miami. He may be the Republican Obama, but that’s not really his problem.

I don’t think Jeb will be the nominee because:

Last name Bush. Dynasties don’t wear as well with Republicans as they do with Democrats. If Carolyn Kennedy threw her pill box shaped hat in the race, she would have a decent shot because…last name Kennedy. And this is even though she’s an incompetent who blew her chance to be appointed senator by being unable to talk in interviews. Hillary is the Democratic “front runner” now only because of dynasty.

His family is messed up. His wife isn’t comfortable in English (probably because of the practice of speaking Spanish at home), She also has a shopping problem. All of his kids have been arrested at least once and his daughter was a drug addict. Not exactly a picture perfect first family.

But the real clincher is that the only national issue Jeb is associated with is amnesty, which is unpopular with the base. Now of course whoever does end up with the nomination will probably be pro amnesty too since any anti-amnesty candidate won’t be able to get the funds to run. Republican donors are as pro amnesty as Chuck Schumer. But the other candidates will be associated with other issues. Jeb won’t. And on that issue he looks vacillating and contradictory. As I have written about previously, he came out with a book in 2013 about amnesty in which he proposed not offering a path to citizenship. Since he had always supported amnesty with citizenship before, on day 1 of his book tour he was asked why he changed his mind, and he stammered and it turned out he hadn’t changed his mind at all. So the first day of his book tour he disavowed the central premise of the book he was trying to sell. That will come up over and over in 2016.

Of course, what Jeb was hoping for was that by the time 2016 rolled around, amnesty would have been a done deal, and he could have pointed to the book to say, “See? I was opposed to citizenship!” That would place him to the right of the actual policy. I think the odds look poor for that now.

As a governor he wasn’t bad and was pretty tight with the State dollar, however he didn’t have any input in Federal areas like immigration. Frum’s article does make a good case for the similarities between Jeb and Obama, but I think the real take away is that when it comes to immigration, Jeb is certifiable. He seems to have no other passions other than illegal immigrants. And it’s not even a logical obsession. It’s actually more about preferring Latin Culture and people to the more Anglo variety that Jeb hails from. How else to explain the illogic of wanting to grant people who illegally cross the border amnesty (who are mostly Hispanic), but deport people who actually entered the country legally, but overstayed their visas (and who are primarily not Hispanic)? Never has an American politician been so blatant about replacing me and my family with someone else that he likes better. Bush is obviously carrying around some mental issues about his fellow Americans.

The Democrats are far more circumspect than this.

I hate to be one of those, “I’ll never vote for…” types who swear they’ll never vote if McCain/Romney/fill in the blank wins the nomination, but I think Jeb would actually be worse than any conceivable Democrat. Except maybe Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, and even then, I’m not sure Gutiérrez is as obsessed with illegals as Jeb is.

This from The Atlantic, and my main surprise is that The Atlantic ran something like this before Salon did. Written by Atlantic columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates, the title doesn’t match the article, which instead is about the persistent housing and mortgage discrimination that sabotaged dreams of African American home ownership and achieving the middle class throughout the 20th Century. As a history, the article is extremely well done, but has what to do with reparations exactly? My gut feeling is that this is a well researched piece that Coates had been working on for a while, and the editors decided to run with the title and the tacked on conclusion about reparations. My guess is it’s after a call from either the White House, DNC, or whoever is planning election strategy for Democrats for this year. In case there was any doubt, in the same way that the Democratic strategy for the 2012 election was the “Republican War on Women,” 2014 will be the year of the “Republican War on Blacks.” In order to generate African American turnout, could this be the year that the Democratic Party begins supporting some sort of reparations?

Charles Murray is his usual controversial self, but he makes some good points with:

Murray argues that the value of a 4 year college degree, the trusty BA, has dropped over the years as more people over the years as more people have them. In 2014, does it make sense to tell every High School student who can fog an SAT to go to college, even if you are going for non descript social science or liberal arts field? And he brings up a really penetrating question, why does it take 4 academic school years to get a BA no matter what is taught?

I’m not into what the kids call tumbler, but I came across this link and it’s eye opening.

This tumbler however, compares street photos of Detroit from 2009 to 2013. The rapid deterioration of the property is amazing. Note to Walking Dead producers: If you want to see how houses and businesses really look after the apocalypse, this will give you the comparative tools to build realistic sets.

No collection of links could be complete without one from Mark Steyn. The problem is, as always, which one to pick?

The article compares National Review writer Dinesh D’Souza’s conviction for breaking campaign finance laws, with the Obama campaign disengaging their security for credit card transactions for 2008 and 2012 so anyone, from Adolph Hitler to Mickey Mouse could donate to the Obama campaign, and from anywhere in the world (Hitler donated from “The Reichstag, Germany”). All a violation of campaign laws of course, but not even an investigation by the FEC. It was an issue that was well covered in the conservative blogosphere but not at all interesting to the MSM. This is part of a long term issue Steyn has been discussing of the organs of government being corrupted to serve the ruling party.

The Army has officially selected its new camouflage pattern, called Scorpion, to replace its current UCP gray pajamas pattern, the last one I wore before retiring. It’s very close to, but not quite similar to the Multicams that have been worn for Afghanistan deployment for the past few years. Why not just multicams? If I knew the answer to that, I might be smart enough to know why switching from desert camo pattern of the old Battle Dress Uniform to gray greenish digital camo would make sense for the desert. All I know is that the travesties of US Army camouflage uniforms over the last 12 years deserve a much longer treatment.